1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a method and apparatus for quantifying the amount produced of dough for bread or confectionery, and in particular, to a method and conveying apparatus for discharging or feeding per unit time a constant amount of dough which is still under fermentation.
2. Description of Prior Art
U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,079,014 and 5,118,274 respectively teach a method and an apparatus for discharging or feeding a constant amount of dough per unit time. U.S. Pat. No. 5,079,014 discloses a method for automatically producing a sheet of dough used for the production of bread or confectionery wherein the manufacturing parameters, including the production speed, width, and thickness of the sheet of dough, are previously stored in a computer memory, so that a mass of dough supplied with a non-uniform width or thickness can be automatically stretched into a sheet of dough that satisfies the conditions stored in the computer memory.
The apparatus of U.S. Pat. No. 5,118,274 includes a dough-supplying conveyor and a constant-speed delivery conveyor positioned in series with and downstream of the supplying conveyor. The apparatus also includes a stretching roller which reciprocates, a dough-width measuring device, and means for changing the speed of the supplying conveyor in response to the signal produced by the dough-width measuring device. The stretching roller is disposed above the downstream end of the dough-supplying conveyor and the upstream end of the delivery conveyor. As a thick continuous dough sheet enters the space between the roller and the conveyors, it is stretched by the reciprocating roller. When the amount of the dough transferred by the supplying conveyor to the delivery one is greater than that discharged by the delivery one, the stretched dough becomes wider. The measuring device disposed near the roller detects the width of the wider stretched dough, and based on the detection the control means then lessens the speed of the supplying conveyor, so that the amount of the dough fed by the supply conveyor to the delivery conveyor equals the amount discharged by the delivery conveyor. Thus, in this apparatus a unit volume of dough is delivered per unit time.
However, if the dough is still under fermentation, the volume or specific gravity of the dough changes between the times when it is placed on the supply conveyor and when discharged from the delivery conveyor to a post-treatment station, such as a product-making or dough-cutting one. This may cause a drawback in that the products may differ from each other in weight. Further, there exists another drawback in that productivity will decrease as the speed of the supply conveyor is lowered.